Prometheus 6

Consider this book

A Wreath for Emmett Till (Boston Globe-Horn Book Honors (Awards))

Description:

In 1955, people all over the United States knew that Emmett Louis Till was a fourteen-year-old African American boy lynched for supposedly whistling at a white woman in Mississippi. The brutality of his murder, the open-casket funeral, and the acquittal of the men tried for the crime drew wide media attention.

Award-winning poet Marilyn Nelson reminds us of the boy whose fate helped spark the civil rights movement. This martyr’s wreath, woven from a little-known but sophisticated form of poetry, challenges us to speak out against modern-day injustices, to “speak what we see.”

In Los Angeles, a charter school forbade the recitation of the poem from this award-winning book. Two teachers signed a student letter disputing the decision and were fired for their troubles.

Administrators at a Los Angeles charter school forbade students from reciting a poem about civil rights icon Emmett Till during a Black History Month program recently, saying his story was unsuitable for an assembly of young children.

Teachers and students said the administration suggested that the Till case — in which the teenager was beaten to death in Mississippi after allegedly whistling at a white woman — was not fitting for a program intended to be celebratory, and that Till's actions could be viewed as sexual harassment.

The decision by Celerity Nascent Charter School leaders roiled the southwest Los Angeles campus and led to the firing of seventh-grade teacher Marisol Alba and math teacher Sean Strauss, who had signed one of several letters of protest written by the students.

Read that again:

The school's goal seems to be the trivialization of their students.

"Our whole goal is how do we get these kids to not look at all of the bad things that could happen to them and instead focus on the process of how do we become the next surgeon or the next politician," said Celerity co-founder and Executive Director Vielka McFarlane. "We don't want to focus on how the history of the country has been checkered but on how do we dress for success, walk proud and celebrate all the accomplishments we've made."

For Black folks, that just stretches their neck for the knife. Director McFarlane, who, as the L.A. Times says, is Black, should know that; if she doesn't she's not fit to educate Black children.

"There's no celebration in the Emmett Till story," said Stephen Weathers, president of the school's parent organization. "He was beaten for whistling at a white woman, and I don't want my daughter to know that in the fourth grade. I don't think a celebration of Black History Month is a forum for that story. It's important, but that wasn't the stage for it."

The reframing of Emmitt Till as the villain by the principal, Grace Canada, is fucking monstrous, okay?

Alba said that when the principal informed the class that they could not recite their poem, she gave the example of a construction worker whistling at her as she walked down the street.

"She said that she would be offended by that and that what Emmett Till did could be considered sexual harassment," said Alba. "She used the phrase a couple of times and when I objected, she said 'OK, inappropriately whistled at a woman.' "

Many parents said their children affirmed that account. Marcia Alston, mother of a seventh-grader, called the school to say she was appalled at its interpretation of history and the treatment of the teachers. She said that in the conversation, the principal used the term "rude" to describe Till's actions.

This heifer is justifying the lynching of Emmitt Till. We may have found an honest-to-gawd feminazi.

I should probably comment on how charter schools as currently conceived leave teachers vulnerable to this sort of high-handedness. But I'm too annoyed over an 80% Black school whose executive director willfully downplays history and the real-world obstacles their students have to overcome, and whose principal thinks Emmitt Till's lynching had any justification at all.

A Wreath for Emmett Till (Boston Globe-Horn Book Honors (Awards)) author: Marilyn Nelson asin: 0618397523